


Laughing together

by Notasmuch



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Bullying, Homophobic Language, Imaginary Friends, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 19:45:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1317049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notasmuch/pseuds/Notasmuch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sid has an imaginary friend whose name is Geno.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laughing together

**Author's Note:**

> The slur I warn for is the f-word and bullying is mentioned and big part of the background picture but not written in detail. Some of it was taken from his actual life, but hyped to the next level.
> 
> Beta by [Nothinginfinite](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nothinginfinite/pseuds/nothinginfinite). 
> 
> And, I am apparently incapable of writing a fic that isn't just self-indulgent food for my soul any more, so you all get to participate now. Welcome.
> 
> I am absolutely not ok with this story being shared on ANY OTHER WEBSITE.

Sid is six when Geno shows up. His parents can’t even pretend to be surprised. The neighbors certainly don’t. Sid is an amazing kid. He’s kind and polite, passionate about hockey, careful with animals and his baby sister. One thing he’s not good at is making friends. He has hockey friends, kids on his team and neighbors who play on the lake with him. But as much as all those kids love hockey too, at some point they pack up and go play other games, or watch tv, or cause mayhem in the neighborhood. Sid waves them off and continues shooting at the goal which is still bigger than he is. He doesn’t go home until Troy gets him and drags him in. He’s polite even about that, but there’s a stubbornness about him that says _some day you won’t be able to hold me back._

Hockey is great, but it’s not a friend, the ice doesn’t talk back and the puck can’t make you laugh. Sid talks to both sometimes though. The neighbors notice and make worried comments until Trina does research. She isn’t surprised to read that lonely kids develop overactive imagination. And despite his family and hockey, sometimes when the sun is setting and Sid is just sliding between a set of pucks, there’s no doubt in her mind that he’s lonely. 

So when he comes home giggling one day, just as Troy is putting his boots on to go get him, and says “I made a friend, his name is Geno,” and points at the air next to him, they can’t exactly say they never saw it coming.

**

Sid is seven and Geno chirps him while he plays on the lake. Geno calls him a bag of milk, which makes no sense but he laughs anyway. When Geno chirps him it feels like a joke, something they share. It makes Sid show off to his friend, play better. Other players started doing it in the rink and sometimes their parents join in. They call him names and laugh when he falls. In a different way, that makes him play better too.

The friends he used to play with on the lake only join him on weekends now. Between school and rink hockey, they prefer to spend weekdays doing anything else. It is also possible he spoke to Geno out loud a few times even though his parents told him not to. He couldn’t help himself though, he was so not playing like a “puppy on ice” and Geno had to shut up about it. But it got him some weird looks and a few of his friends avoid him after that. It's okay though, he still has Geno and his horrible chirps.

He doesn’t always understand his friend, not just because his jokes are bad but because he seems to speak in Russian. That’s what he said anyway, Sid has no idea if it’s actually Russian. But he understands Geno’s smile when Sid slams four straight pucks right where he wanted them. It’s his “you are the best” smile. 

Playing hockey is the best thing ever. Sometimes it makes him sad that the only person who gets that is Geno. He plays too, he tells Sid. He plays in a town in Russia that Sid is trying hard to pronounce even though he's pretty sure it doesn't exist. Geno is great. He's gonna play in the Russian league. 

** 

Sid is eight and his mom sets an extra place at the table. He knows it’s ridiculous, because Imaginary Geno - as everyone’s started calling him, probably just to annoy Sid - doesn’t need to eat, what with being imaginary and all. But it feels stupid to just let him stand there and watch them have dinner. 

His mom leaves the plate empty but Taylor puts everything she doesn’t like on it. Geno doesn’t eat, but he does tease Sid about eating with his mouth open. 

In the summer they sit by the lake and talk about hockey. And sometimes cartoons or Taylor or Geno’s life in Russia. Sid’s not sure when he has time to be there, since they are _always_ together, but he doesn’t mind, he only sometimes wishes he could visit Geno too. Mostly though, they talk about hockey and wait for the lake to freeze again. 

When it finally does, they play together. Geno is a year older than Sid but sometimes he acts worse than Taylor. He skates around Sid and trips him and pushes him off the ice or into the boards while Sid is trying to score. It's great exercise though. Way better than most of his teammates. Ok, all of them. 

Sid wishes he could play with Geno forever. Together they would make it to the NHL for sure.

**

Sid is nine and his dad keeps saying Geno isn't real. Sid doesn't know what to say to that because of course he's not. He's imaginary, that's what it means. He's still the best friend Sid ever had and he's not letting him go just to make his parents feel better. 

He almost changes his mind the night he hears them argue about it. His dad is shouting about growing up, his mom is shouting about Sid being alone, which he wasn't, he had hockey, but even hockey is better with Geno. They shout and shout and he keeps his ear pressed to the door and bites his lip and when he finally looks around Geno isn’t there. 

He looks around his room and feels his teeth tingle like they haven’t since he was a kid. He presses fingers to his eyes because he’s not gonna cry but before he can make and break that promise there’s a hand on his shoulder and he grabs it blindly and pulls Geno into a hug. “Don’t be _stupid_!” he hisses into Geno’s ear, even though for a moment there, when his mom’s voice wobbled, he thought about giving him up. 

** 

Sid is ten and he’s telling his parents Geno is gone. 

He started lying five days ago when Nick from next door suddenly decided to tell the whole team about Geno and they all laughed and called Sid a freak and a fag and wouldn’t stop until Sid said it wasn’t true. He said he had no idea who Geno was and that Nick was lying because he was jealous that Sid was a better player. They believed him because Nick _was_ jealous, but all the while Sid kept looking at Geno who looked sad but just nodded, like he understood. He probably did, Geno always understands. Sid felt like shit anyway.

So now Geno sits with him in cafeteria and by the rink and at Sid’s dinner table and doesn’t say a word, so he wouldn’t make Sid laugh or respond by accident. The only place they can still be themselves is on the lake, when everyone else goes home. It means Sid stays out till it’s too dark to see the puck on the ice, but it’s ok now because everyone can see that “he’s going places” so they let him be. 

On the lake Geno acts like nothing is wrong, he pushes Sid and chirps him and hugs him after a good run. Sometimes Geno plays the goalie and he’s really hard to get through, but mostly he charges at Sid from the goal and takes his puck and scores at the opposite net even though it isn’t even part of the game. Sid yells at him and calls him a wet sock and trips them both down and they laugh until their lips freeze.

**

Sid is eleven and he hates school. He hates all of it but he really hates the asshole pressing him against the lockers right now, calling him names. Cindy and fag and nothing he hasn’t heard before. He has hockey strength but he’s still not tall enough and the guy is holding him down too easily. He’s trying to get his arms free, at least one of them, to push or punch, he’s not sure which, but before he can the boy is on the floor, clutching his head. Sid can’t take his eyes of Geno who is looking at his own hand like he’s never seen it before.

“Did you…” 

Geno looks at him with huge eyes then and pulls him through the hallways to an empty bathroom before the other kid can get up and start asking his own questions. 

“How did you do that?” Sid asks the second they are in but Geno just shakes his head and says “I don’t know, I don’t know, it never happened before!” 

“You’re imaginary!” Sid tells him, in case he forgot.

“Only _a bit!_ ” Geno says and shakes his hand which probably hurts from the hit. Sid’s head is starting to hurt too.

“Can you do it again? Can you, can you poke someone? Can you move things? Maybe you’re turning real? Maybe we could keep you!?” 

Sid can already see the future. He sees Geno slowly turning more solid, being able to touch people and move things. Proving to his parents that Geno is real, their amazed and a little bit shamed faces. Terrifying the other kids in school before Geno becomes visible by just tripping them and moving their things around randomly. He sees himself playing with Geno in a rink with an actual team. Chirping and hugging and winning the Stanley Cup together with everyone proud of them. 

Geno doesn’t seem so sure. He says he already is real, in Russia. He has a family, he goes to school, has his own team. He can’t just leave it all to punch some kids in Canada.  
Sid knows all this but he doesn’t understand how Geno can be imaginary and real at the same time. For the first time he wonders if his parents were right. If he was supposed to grow out of this. What does it mean that he hasn’t? 

It takes him three months to give up hope. Geno never touches anyone else again, he doesn’t become more real, no one can see or hear him except Sid. 

Sid can live with that. He has, for a long time. He’s just not sure if he’s supposed to, any more. Maybe… maybe he shouldn’t. 

**

Sid is twelve and his knee _hurts_. The kid just went after it during a faceoff, like with a baseball bat. He didn’t know anything could be worse than his previous school, but high school was really, _really_ shit.

He is still great at hockey. He still loves hockey. He just hates everyone on this stupid team and all their parents and everyone on all the other teams they play ever. He punctuates his thoughts with banging doors and throwing bags and ignores his parents’ calls. He can’t deal with anyone right now. 

So of course Geno follows him in and sits on the bed and looks at him like he has been for days now and Sid is already angry but this takes him over the top. 

“Stop it!” he whisper-shouts at the other kid. “It happened once, never again, I’m not a girl or a… ” he could never quite say the bad word, maybe because so many people threw it at him, but he couldn’t really say the other one, either, “or whatever, I don’t need more of this. I need to be normal, a little, ok? Stop looking at me like that, please.” 

But Geno isn’t even looking at him like that anymore because his eyes are half closed and his face is too close to Sid’s and it’s not even a _pretty_ face and Sid has wanted to kiss him again since two seconds after the first time it happened. He’s leaning over Geno who is sitting on the bed so he grabs his hair to keep balance when their lips press for a few seconds. It feels so good Sid wants to cry because it’s _not_ supposed to. He pushes harder until his teeth hurt and Geno makes a noise and grabs Sid’s hips. 

For some reason, that brings Sid back to reality. To his aching knee and worried parents and the fact that no one else in his life thinks Geno is real. 

He moves back until his back hits the door and then let himself slide down, careful of the knee. 

He can deal with this. All of this. He just needs to breathe for a while, maybe make a list. 

**

Sid is thirteen and he is trying. He exercises, eats well, goes to school, plays hockey, ignores the names, ignores the death threats, ignores Geno looking at him from the sidelines. He comes home, does his homework, smiles for his parents, hugs Taylor. In his room, he curls up next to Geno and kisses him until his lips burn. When Geno is asleep, he goes to the bathroom and stares in the mirror. Because his lips are red. They hurt and they are tender and imagination can’t do that. Imagination can’t turn your lips spit slick or dry or red. 

There’s a psychologist in his school that he has to see. They talk about how Sid feels about hockey. He says he loves it. They talk about Sid making more friends. He says he has enough. They talk about Sid ignoring the threats he’s hearing from the stands. He says he does. 

He makes interviews like he’s on the NHL, but they don’t let him give honest answers. He learns to talk in monotone that makes Geno laugh. Geno calls him a faker. It’s a chirp, but it makes Sid sick because yes, that’s the word he was looking for. That’s what he is. 

**

Sid is fourteen and he’s giving up. He’s begging his parents to send him away. “Look at their hockey program,” he tells them. “They are the best. And they want me.” _I’m drowning._ he doesn’t say. 

But they know anyway. They talk about it, loudly, about the money and the risk and about him being alone, again, but in the end they say yes, because they know. 

And he is so close to breathing again, he just needs to do one last thing to start a new life, one where he could pass as normal. He could play hockey and make friends and stop making his parents worry and make them proud instead. 

He goes to his room after his parents agree and hugs Geno. He wants to tell him it’s time, that Sid doesn’t need him anymore and he can go, stop being his imaginary friend. But it’s so much more than that by now that he can’t open his mouth to speak at all. He still needs him, he always will, but he can’t have him and be normal at the same time and he needs to be normal more than almost anything else. 

He can’t speak so he bites Geno’s lips instead. Geno never lets him do whatever he wants though so they are kissing soon but it feels different. Sid knows it’s because he’s needy. Because he’s stealing everything he can get before he lets it all go. 

Geno falls asleep on his bed and Sid looks at him for a long time. Wonders if his mind made him up or if he’s real, a real Geno somewhere in Russia with Sid as imaginary friend. He wonders if Russian Geno wants to be normal too. 

He can’t be that kid anymore, he just can’t. He goes to sleep thinking about how to tell Geno without hurting him. He doesn't have to do it straight away though, there’s still time, whole summer. 

But when he wakes up Geno is gone. He’s not in the room, he’s not at the breakfast table, he’s not at the rink and he’s definitely, one hundred percent, not at the lake. It’s not even frozen anymore, Sid doesn’t know what he was expecting. He waits there until his dad drags him home at midnight anyway. When his parents ask what he was doing out he tells them he was waiting for the lake to freeze and they look at him a little sad when he laughs at his own joke. 

He doesn’t cry. This is what he wanted. 

**

Sid is nineteen and on the socially acceptable side of not normal. He's racking up points in NHL and good money on his account so no one seems to care any more that he’s living with Mario’s family, that he’s never dated anyone or that all of his friends are his hockey team. 

Sometimes reporters ask vetted personal questions but they still smile politely at his answers and write nicely worded articles about what a great player he is. He’s aware that a lot of people still hate him, but with his team and Mario’s and his own family as a wall around him; he doesn’t really care.

This morning Mario called him to say Evgeni Malkin, who signed with them ages ago, is running away from Russia to join the Penguins like a badass hockey spy. Sid is excited. He’s seen him play, he’s amazing, speed and strength and precision. He wants to play with him so bad his toes itch. 

Gonch is bringing him over because apparently the guy doesn’t speak more than a few words of English. 

It’s a strange moment, when the door opens and he turns around and he looks at Malkin for the first time. Or a millionth. He’s seen that face. Not exactly the same, younger and… different. But he knows those eyes. And those lips. He recognizes the nervous twitch of his too long fingers.  
He wants to blame Mario for this, somehow, but knows it’s his own fault. He only cared about Malkin’s game, he didn’t even bother with anything else. Mario took care of it all. 

Gonch is introducing them, Malkin is being polite and Mario is apologizing for not being able to say his name properly, or where he’s from. And Sid can’t really help himself. 

“Magnitogorsk” he says, fluently, he practiced for _months_ dammit. Malkin beams at him. He knows that smile, his “you are the best” smile. He had no idea how much he missed it until he sees it again and his chest hurts because he still wants _so much_ more. Mario and Gonch are staring at him but he doesn’t care. Malkin doesn’t seem to care either.

“You say me Geno,” Malkin says with a shy smile in the worst English ever and Sid can’t breathe. 

**

Sid is twenty one and he is happy. 

It is day three of the post-Stanley-Cup party and he is still smiling so bright his face hurts. He is covered in champagne, beer and sweat. They are in someone’s house and he is banging through doors in between hugs and high fives and fistbumps, looking for Geno who disappeared and sent him a photo of his cock, because he’s subtle like that - Sid laughed and closed his phone before anyone noticed, he didn’t even know his phone could receive pics. 

He finally makes his way to the second floor and in the third room to the right finally finds Geno, sitting on the bed, slumping a bit but smiling just as wide.

“You came!” 

“Well I got a nice invitation.” 

Geno laughs too much and Sid locks the door. He goes in for a hug but mostly they end up tangled together on the floor. He feels kisses in his sweaty hair and presses closer to the warm body next to him. 

“We won,” he whispers like it’s a secret. 

Geno just trails a line of kisses down his cheek to his lips. His hands wrap around Sid’s face and they beam at each other ridiculously for a while. “You choose good,” Geno finally says. 

Sid stops smiling. They talked a lot about their past, what each of them remembered and how different it was and how yes, Geno was a Russian boy with a weird, not very friendly Canadian imaginary friend. They talked about everything possible, but never Sid’s choice to end it. 

He assumed the reason they never talked about it was because they both knew it was unforgivable. Maybe if Geno had been an imaginary person, it would have been okay, though Sid wasn’t even sure about that. Only Geno wasn’t imaginary. Sid’s choice actually hurt him, and he didn’t really think that choosing a fake normalcy out of cowardice was something that could be forgiven. 

“No, I didn’t.” Sid doesn’t want to explain. He _knows_ what a shitty thing it was. Even apologizing wouldn’t fix it so he doesn’t. 

“Sid was bad, in head. But made himself good. Make me proud. We win together, because you choose good.” Geno’s English is better now than it was when they first met - though never as good as it was when they were kids, which they can’t explain - but longer sentences with lots of pronouns and tenses still confuse him. Sid gets it though, he understands, he’s just not sure he agrees. 

“I broke us up.” 

Geno still hasn’t let go of him, but he’s just touching his face gently now, ignoring the eternal ugliness of his facial hair. “We not real then.” 

And that hurts. He can see Geno frowning because that’s not exactly what he meant to say even though he’s right in so many ways but it still _hurts_. Maybe it’s good hurt though. Like when his muscles ache after a hard workout. 

He feels his guilt ebb a little, because it’s true, his Geno then wasn’t exactly the same as this one, and the Sid that Geno had wasn’t quite right either. And their choices still brought them here, to the Cup and the floor and the kissing. 

“Maybe,” he’s willing to concede for now, in exchange for kisses, which Geno provides. 

They are still smiling when the kiss breaks, though it’s more sappy now. But Geno breaks the moment with a very decisive, “You need shave now.” 

“It’s not that bad,” Sid says. 

“It bad,” and he pulls Sid to his feet and into the bathroom where he has everything ready for a shave. 

“You planned this!” _in a stranger's house_ Sid doesn’t say but he thinks it’s obvious how incredibly wrong that is.

“Day three, Sidney, is time.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is RPF where F stands for fiction. Geno was probably never anyone's imaginary friend. Sid's childhood would make a great tearjerker though, even though he would call it "[time well spent](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94j-gjc8W0A)"


End file.
